Monday, August 20, 2012

Letter to Dad March 23, 1943

Dear Daddy,
Last Sunday we went to Sunday School in the morning and went to see Bambi in the afternoon. The other show was All American Co-ed and it was about a man who dressed like a woman.

We filled our War Stamp booklets and we are going to get our bond tomorrow. I have 50 cents in another book. I am saving my money to get the Open Road for Boys. It costs $1.60 a year and I have 60 cents saved toward it.

Mother took our pictures tonight. Two of them were of us on the haystack. At school we are playing marbles and I have lost a lot of mine, as usual. I haven't had to stand in the corner any more but I got a red 5. I did manage to get on the honor roll for this week though.

With love, Dwight
P.S. Mother forgot to mail our letters in with hers, so we sent ours in another envelope. Dwight

Comment: Dad went to Edmonton with Les Utter to do war-related construction work, I believe on an air terminal facility, riding the train. When he left, we kids knew nothing until Mom and Dad came to school and got us out of class to say goodby. I think Louise and I would have been in the 7th grade. Our grades were "1,2,3,4,5", and not ABC, etc. Red 5's were marked in red ink. I can't remember what was so egregious as to merit a red 5 and I don't remember standing in the corner. The system we had of going to church or Sunday School in the morning and going to the movies in the afternoon was an absolutely wonderful system. This system came to a screeching halt when Mother became a Sunday School teacher and I guess she didn't want to be setting a bad example. Sadly, we saw very few, if any, movies after that. I thought Bambi was a stupid movie for killing off his poor mother in the fire. Dad's stay in Canada was short-lived, however, as one day we came home from school and he jumped out from behind the door in our bedroom with a big "boo". He had contracted pneumonia and had to come home to get well. Thus ended another in his perennial, and often unsuccessful, efforts to make a little extra money. But he and Mother never gave up. My penmanship in this letter was remarkably good for an 11 year old. In the first grade, there wasn't much to do so I kept practicing the Parker Penmanship script on the top of the blackboard until I got all the letters right. I didn't know until just a few years ago that my classmate and ultimate fellow annual editor Dolores had done the same. thing. To this day, the handwriting for each of us is virtually indistinguishable. I ultimately ended up with enough money to subscribe to the Open Road for Boys, which I loved.

8 comments:

Dad probably loved hearing a positive report from you. That must have been a very difficult time for everyone. You have always had good penmanship, at least that I remember.As for Bambi, I saw that movie when I was very little. Up until about the mid 1970's I had a recurring nightmare where I was trying to run on the road that went around by the woodpile in Penrose but the road went up and down in waves, and there were dogs chasing me. I could never get away from them, and I would wake up in absolute panic. In about the mid 1970's, we took all of our kids to see Bambi at the drive-in in Springville. As we were watching the movie and it came to the place where the dogs/wolves/whatever were chasing Bambi and road went up and down in waves, there was a real ah ha moment for me. There was my nightmare. I haven't had that stupid dream since.

when Daddy came to get us out of classes (it seems like it was 6th grade? ) didn't he give us each a quarter? I remember how happy we were when he came home. And he brought home this big wonderfully warm parka with a hood. (I hope my memoriy is skewed.)

Dad gave us a quarter - He said he was giving us 2 bits, and in second grade, I had no idea what that was (I hoped it was a dollar.) I didn't understand that he was going to go far away. And after they left, I had to go back into school, and there was a big black dog in my way. More nightmares, Ann. We were glad when he came back home, but he was sick for quite a while, it seems like.

We did see Cinderella on Sunday. Mother and Daddy were in Salt Lake (is that the time they brought home the piano?). I remember all of us going over to the park in Powell after church, swinging on the swings waiting for the movie to start. I can distinctly remember Dwight and Louise being there.

Cinderella on Sunday must have been okay - Dwight drove the car - we all must have gone, because I certainly remember being there. And then Mother bought some Cinderella fabric,and we made aprons. Life should be so uncomplicated today!

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